About Go West, Young Dog! by Paul Koudounaris
Starting in the 1860s, America’s railways found themselves serving an unexpected category of passenger: stray dogs, hopping on and off the trains at will, traveling the lengths of the country. These dogs were written up in newspapers as novelties, but they were embraced by the public as symbols of freedom and some would go on to be widely known and heroized. America’s first canine celebrities, their triumphant, tragic, and humorous adventures are recounted in these pages.
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Author Bio:
PhD from UCLA where I was basically the Fox Mulder of the Art History Department, and gave that up to focus on writing and research in the history of animals and cultural death rituals. Previous books include A Cat’s Tale (written with my car Baba, and a BN book of the year); Faithful Unto Death (a history of pet cemeteries and animal memorials); Heavenly Bodies (Baroque jeweled skeletons); Memento Mori (global photo essay on death related sites); Empire of Death (on charnel houses). Currently trying to promote an e-book on railroad dogs, a subject I fell in love with and in my naivite thought it would be easy to put out myself.